low_delta

Saturday was nice in the morning, so I did some yard and garden work. In the afternoon, we went out to Raised Grain in Waukesha for their tenth anniversary party. Wasn't planning on staying for a long time, but... we did. Cindy seemed to be not hating being with my friends, and periodically it was time for more beer, so we got more beer. There was a barbecue stand set up, so when the guys went to get some, we were like, should we have barbecue? We didn't really have a better option for dinner, so yes. We had four beers in four hours, but it turns out that was kind of a lot.

I'd planned on staying in on Sunday because the forecast called for rain all day, but it turned out not to rain at all, so I spent more time out there. I went and got flu and Covid shots. My arm hurt, so I really wasn't up for doing more yard work after that, though I did go for a little hike at the lake shortly after that. Didn't really accomplish much that day.

Today it was back to work. I would have gone into the office but I was feeling kind of crappy after the vaccinations.

I have a couple of big tasks to complete soon, and not much time to do them in. Can I get them done tomorrow evening?

Things were fairly slow over the summer, but September has suddenly become a rush.

Monday, after work I went down to visit Doug. Got home late. Tuesday I had a board meeting online, then had to go to my mom's to help with her computer. Wednesday I took the day off and went to Chicago. Got home late. Thursday I had a book team meeting.

My mom got a new computer in March. In July, I helped her renew her anti-malware software. Now, she's having trouble with malware on her computer, and I learned that there was no anti-malware installed on her new computer. I did that for her, but can't get rid of some stuff that this software can't handle. Nothing serious, just adware, but it's very annoying for her. She's going to have to take it somewhere to fix it.

My intention was to walk around in Chicago with my camera, buy some whisky, then have dinner with B. By the time I got down there it was lunchtime. I walked around for about an hour and a half. Then I drove up to Binny's, and got some whisky for our upcoming tasting. Then I went up to Evanston to see an art exhibition. It was OK. But it takes so long to get from one place to another, I felt like I didn't really have a whole lot of time in the city. But we sat for 2-1/2 hours at dinner, so that was nice. I got home at midnight, and didn't got to bed for an hour after that.

I've got so much going on right now, it's stressing me out. Things happening with CoPA. Things kinda happening with SAS, but it seems like there's a list that I'm not getting done.

I woke early today. Sleep was fading into consciousness around 7am when I heard the neighbors rolling the trash bins to the road for pickup, which was pushed back to Saturday due to the Monday's holiday. I knew the truck wouldn't come until after 9, but at that point I couldn't sleep, so I got up and took ours out. And I decided that since I was up early, I might as well drive over to the lake and get a photo because the clouds were good.

Our weekend morning ritual is to sit in the family room and do whatever it is on our devices. For me, it's reading on Substack. But today the house was down to 63°F, so I went out and got some wood and lit a fire. And then I couldn't stay awake and slept off and on for about 45 minutes.

I did some work outside. I trimmed some branches from the smaller ash tree. I thinned some of the irises. Picked tomatoes. We had a beer in the afternoon. I printed some photos. Posted a report in my gardening journal. What else? Seems like I'm forgetting some things.

Last night we went to the opening of a show that Cindy had some work in, and then went for some food and drink. No plans for tomorrow, except that I hope I'll be productive. Mainly, I have CoPA stuff to take care of.

It's been cool here for the past week. We hit 75 once. Our house is at or below our winter temperatures, because I'm not turning on the furnace in August. It's going to be above 70 Sunday through Tuesday, and then drop into the 50's and low 60's for a few days before it creeps back up toward 70°.

I'm not happy about this. I like it warm. I like it warm enough to go out in shorts and a T-shirt. The summer's not supposed to be over yet! The cool air is depressing. Between that and the mosquitos, I don't feel like going outside at all.

I've been working on a project. I've been taking photos of the lake. Every one is taken from the exact same spot, with the exact same lens and settings. I capture the changing water and sky. I'm enjoying the differences in different weather. I started in the end of December. I'm always keeping an eye on the sky over the lake, watching for interesting clouds.

I'd been needing to mow the lawn all week, and tonight was finally the night. Partway through it, I noticed rose pink clouds lit up by the setting sun. Usually, when I see good clouds in the sunset, the light is gone by the time I get there. But this time I felt like I still had time, so I grabbed my camera and jumped in the car. I was worried, because while the sun wasn't going down below the horizon yet, it was going down behind some clouds. I drove as fast as I could, and ran up the trail to the bluff, and the clouds and light were still there!

The clouds had diminished, but the light was still good. By the time I got back on the road, the light was gone, so I barely made it in time.



So I'll have to finish the lawn tomorrow night.

I got my hair cut yesterday. There were at least four people working, and I got the one guy who works there. It seems like I know his whole story. He was a Navy guy who got out in the 70's and didn't know what to do until someone invited him to cut hair. But yesterday he just started in talking about his cat, who he had to put to sleep about a month ago, and he told me about its surgery a couple of years ago, and finding a new cat now, and he's going to drive up north today to pick it up. And then after a pause, apparently because I didn't start talking, all the flooding we had triggered stories about some flooding he had to deal with about fifteen years go. And the whole story about the daughter of the woman he was with at that time, and her upcoming marriage and baby. I didn't mind hearing all of that because what else do I have to do, but I wonder about his coworkers. How many times have they heard these stories?

And then a neighbor came over last night. We waved at each other across the street, and I was a little surprised she didn't start up a conversation right then. But very soon after she came over looking for me. I guess her excuse to come over was to ask whether we had any damage from the rain, but then went off on every subject she could think of, without a pause between. Every story had a tangent, and few of them were longer than a couple of sentences before she shifted direction. It was all about what she's been up to and things surrounding her, so it wasn't like politics and stuff, but she did ask how we were doing, at one point.

Friday... I forget what happened Friday night.

Saturday morning I went down to do some gardening at the Burns Monument. (This is a park in Milwaukee where my Scottish club takes care of the landscaping around the statue.) It needs attention a few times a year, mainly pulling weeds. While working, I was making plans for taking care of it. I'll set up a gardening day early this fall, and then maybe set up monthly gardening days next summer. But we have to re-landscape it. That is, dig much of it up and figure out what to replace it with.

Lately, the worst weeds are Shasta daisies. They are wildflowers and are not native and are also invasive and have taken over. I had hoped to get there in time to trim the seed heads off before they went to seed. I was too late for most of it. I still did a lot of clipping of the ones that weren't too far gone. I reduced the seed load in about a third of the area, and it took me quite a while.

While I was there, one of the locals stopped by to see what I was doing. Turns out she knows my dad and offered to come down and help us with the gardening when we get that put together. She told me the reason they took out the shrubbery from the neighboring park, was because a homeless person torched it all.

In the afternoon, a while I after I got home, it rained. And rained. Didn't stop until 9am today. We ended up getting nine inches. I don't know what a record rainfall is here, but this had to be close. Many roads in the area were closed this morning and some into the evening. Our road was closed due to a tree down. I wonder when they'll remove it.

Other than that, I'm still working on this book for CoPA. We're meeting on Tuesday night to decide which images to use.

I got up at 7 so I could leave by 8:00. Larry got up to see me off, and went back to bed, because checkout wasn't for another three hours. I walked the block to the tram tram that runs between the airport and city centre.



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After only seeing two sites all day, I told Larry we needed to get out early the next day, since it was our only day in Speyside. We did indeed get a reasonably early start.



Our first stop was at Strathisla Distillery, widely regarded as the prettiest distillery in Scotland. We looked around the shop and chatted with Alasdair a bit, then sat down for a sample of their whisky. I'm not familiar with their spirit since they don't sell it in the US.

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On the Saturday, I got up at 8, showered, ate breakfast (the hosts had provided some foodstuffs for us - yogurt, granola, rolls, cereal, milk, tea, water), checked the map and was out by 8:45. Larry wasn't awake yet. It was important for me to memorize the map, since I didn't have data on my phone, and our new car didn't have satnav.

My first stop was Glen Moray Distillery, in Elgin. They had an interesting selection of whiskies, and appeared to have some bottles out as samples. But there was no one nearby to offer me any. There was kind of a bar with a tray of glasses with whisky. I asked the woman behind it if I could try some whisky, and she said "these are for a tour group." Well, I wasn't expecting to have one of those glasses... I left. I was disappointed because this distillery has good whisky, but they don't seem to sell any of their good ones here in the states. I walked around a bit outside and took some photos.



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